Down Time

This is different.

About 2 weeks ago, on a Sunday afternoon, I realized that I had some downtime.   Let me say that again – I had no housework pending, no food to prepare, no requirements of me. I had exercised, fed everyone, supervised Dominic’s current chore list, and I had nothing that needed me immediately.  So I put together the new hammock swing that had been sitting in the garage for weeks waiting for us to have the time to set it up.

Since that point I’ve been aware, nearly every day, that there was at least one moment during which I had nothing pressing that I needed to do.

For YEARS, I’ve described taking care of Dominic as requiring the same level of supervision and support as a toddler.  You know how a toddler needs either assistance doing tasks or just plain can’t do tasks or is specifically unsafe doing tasks… that’s how Dominic’s competency has been until very recently.  Since January, these are the things that have CHANGED in our daily life, and I was doing ALL of the below before.

Dominic now:

- Takes care of the ducks 100% independently. This means letting them out in the morning, getting them food and water, and gathering eggs, and fluffing the bedding. It means exercising them during the day (letting them out and chasing them)  It means putting them to bed at night.  I actually went out to make sure that he’d done it right this morning because we didn’t hear the water running, and sure enough he’d gotten everything right.

- Takes care of the feeding the dogs every morning

- Picks up all the dog poop (Seriously, I haven’t had to do this in probably 2 months and he does it fully independently, several times a week). I WAS spending about half an hour every weekend just on this task.

-  Folds all his own laundry (we just toss it in his own basket and he takes care of it).  Granted, he then crams it into the drawers so it doesn’t STAY folded, but one step at a time.

- Vacuums.  He particularly enjoys using the hose attachment and will spend an hour on his hands and knees vacuuming.

- cooks his own breakfast (scrambled eggs) and cooks 1 dinner a week (with his OT, but we’re getting ready to try to generalize this skill)

- Gathers the trash and takes it out several times a week

The chores that we are working on learning and he will do with verbal cues from me are cleaning the toilet, sweeping the floor, preparing his lunch for the next day,  and washing the windows.

The sheer load that him doing all of this has taken off my shoulders is, in hindsight, way heavier than I realized I was carrying. I really was doing all the things for him that you do for a toddler aged child, and I didn’t realize until I had a few hours to set up a swing how foreign it was to have downtime. 

I had to send Dominic to his room Sunday night because he and Kumar were playing really rough and that was the only way I could stop the cycle.  What I don’t want is Kumar to bite Dominic in play, because Dominic pushes him that way.  So I sent him to his room at 5:45 and he actually stayed.  Rod went down to send him up for dinner and found him, arms crossed, legs up, with crocodile tears.  He wasn’t locked in, the doors were closed and he was told to spend some time calming down. And he did. 

We were talking last night after Dominic went to bed that it feels like he is now catching up some.  It feels like he’s maturing in a lot of different avenues. He is certainly talking much more clearly, and attempting conversations more frequently.  He’s able to sit and do first grade math. He’s able to identify a great portion of his sight words….

So, you say, what has changed. Why are we seeing this sudden progress?   Well, these are the things we’ve done since January

-        Trialed the androgen reducing protocol. This will be something we cycle in and out, I think. Purely based upon my intuition on how to manage it.  We’re finishing up the last bottles of supplements and will wait 3-6 months before adding them back.

-        Added Liovi and we are dosing per muscle testing each day. Its fluxuating, from 2-4oz per day.  We started at 2 drops and worked up to 4oz, then we’ve been able to back down.  I suspect that we will continue to fluxuate on how much he needs. This is such a strong probiotic that folks are seeing cognitive gains from it alone

-        Maintained our anti inflammatory protocol and mixed it up. Over the years we’ve used PEApure and of course CBD, and now he is muscle testing for both together. So we’re using both together right now.  PEApure crosses the blood brain barrier, so its interesting to me that after a solid 8 months on Prime My Body CBD, he’s now testing for it.  I suspect that it’s a layers of the onion thing.

-        Maintained and increased detox.  Dominic has a 15 minute infrared sauna every night and still does the IonCleanse by AMD footbaths 2-4 times a week. Once summer starts and he’s in the pool, he will cleanse every day that he’s in the pool.

-        Added neurological balancing technology from VoxxLife.  In all the years I’ve worked to heal Dominic’s brain, I’ve never seen anything work like these socks. (and insoles).  2 days into wearing them and he was asking WH questions in school.  We are now 6 weeks into wearing them. I have received reports of a presentation at their conference in Vegas last weekend where they shared brain scans before and after putting the technology on their body. When wearing technology, the entire brain lights up.  As soon as I see the slide presentation on youtube, I’ll share. I so hope it gets there.  To be able to improve brain processing without adding to the body load for excretion is revolutionary.  The immediate improvements of balance, swelling reduction, and stamina positively pale with this because think of what it can do for alzheimers, parkinsons, TBI’s….

All of these together are changing our life, for the better, so quickly. Its very exciting and offers a spark of hope.  I don't know yet if I dare fan that spark.... but while I think about it i'm going ton build the bookshelf that we bought from lowes over the weekend.  Because I'll have some downtimes.